Bleaches and mold removers are classified into chlorine bleach and peroxide bleaches. Chlorine bleaches with the main component of sodium hypochlorite have been used for bleaching fabric and mold developed on the walls of a house or furniture because of its strong bleach activity. However, despite the excellent bleaching effectiveness, chlorine bleach products are fraught with weaknesses such as discoloration of the fabric, making its use inappropriate for colored fabric, unpleasant characteristic odor due to the chlorine molecule during use and the possible danger of poisoning due to chlorine gas.
On the other hand, peroxide bleaches have been used more frequently in the general household because of the wide applicability as a bleach compared to the chlorine type and the absence of malodor. However, the bleaching effectiveness of peroxide bleaches is inferior, if used alone, compared to chlorine bleaches, resulting in poor bleaching performance when used for fabrics at low temperatures and when used for bleaching mold on the surface of household walls or furniture, especially mold which develops on the sink in the kitchen and on the walls and ceiling of the bathroom and tile joints.
Consequently, attempts have been made to increase the bleaching activity by addition of N-acyl compounds such as tetraacetylethylenediamine (TAED) or tetraacetyl glycoluryl (TAGU) or esters such as glucose pentaacetate or saccharose octaacetate to peroxide compounds such as hydrogen peroxide, hydrogen peroxide adduct of sodium carbonate or sodium perborate. Various proposals have been made to use nitrile compounds as the activating agent for improved bleaching activity of peroxide compounds. United Kingdom Patent Application No. 802,035 described use of various nitrile compounds and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 3,882,035 described a bleach product containing iminodiacetonitrile as the activating agent. Japanese Kokai Patent Application No. Sho 521977!-52880 described nitriles such as p-chlorobenzoylcyanamide.
However, insufficient bleaching activity was obtained for fabrics at low temperatures and for removal of household mold by bleaching. There is another weakness in such bleach in that malodor, specifically peracetic acid was generated as the result of reaction of hydrogen peroxide in the use of activators such as N-acyl compounds, for example, TAED, and esters, for example, glucose pentaacetate.